Why `PagerAdapter::notifyDataSetChanged` is not updating the View?

There are several ways to achieve this.

The first option is easier, but bit more inefficient.

Override getItemPosition in your PagerAdapter like this:

public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
    return POSITION_NONE;
}

This way, when you call notifyDataSetChanged(), the view pager will remove all views and reload them all. As so the reload effect is obtained.

The second option, suggested by Alvaro Luis Bustamante (previously alvarolb), is to setTag() method in instantiateItem() when instantiating a new view. Then instead of using notifyDataSetChanged(), you can use findViewWithTag() to find the view you want to update.

Conclusion

If you have a lot of views, or want to support modifying any specific item and/or view (fastly at any time), then the second approach (tagging) is very flexible and high performant, as it prevents recreating all the not modified views. (Kudos to alvarolb for the original research.)

But if your App has only a "refresh" feature (without single item changes being even allowed), or has just few items, use the first approach, as it saves development time.

---

I don't think there is any kind of bug in the PagerAdapter. The problem is that understanding how it works is a little complex. Looking at the solutions explained here, there is a misunderstanding and therefore a poor usage of instantiated views from my point of view.

The last few days I have been working with PagerAdapter and ViewPager, and I found the following:

The notifyDataSetChanged() method on the PagerAdapter will only notify the ViewPager that the underlying pages have changed. For example, if you have created/deleted pages dynamically (adding or removing items from your list) the ViewPager should take care of that. In this case I think that the ViewPager determines if a new view should be deleted or instantiated using the getItemPosition() and getCount() methods.

I think that ViewPager, after a notifyDataSetChanged() call takes it's child views and checks their position with the getItemPosition(). If for a child view this method returns POSITION_NONE, the ViewPager understands that the view has been deleted, calling the destroyItem(), and removing this view.

In this way, overriding getItemPosition() to always return POSITION_NONE is completely wrong if you only want to update the content of the pages, because the previously created views will be destroyed and new ones will be created every time you call notifyDatasetChanged(). It may seem to be not so wrong just for a few TextViews, but when you have complex views, like ListViews populated from a database, this can be a real problem and a waste of resources.

So there are several approaches to efficiently change the content of a view without having to remove and instantiate the view again. It depends on the problem you want to solve. My approach is to use the setTag() method for any instantiated view in the instantiateItem() method. So when you want to change the data or invalidate the view that you need, you can call the findViewWithTag() method on the ViewPager to retrieve the previously instantiated view and modify/use it as you want without having to delete/create a new view each time you want to update some value.

Imagine for example that you have 100 pages with 100 TextViews and you only want to update one value periodically. With the approaches explained before, this means you are removing and instantiating 100 TextViews on each update. It does not make sense...

---

Change the FragmentPagerAdapter to FragmentStatePagerAdapter.

Override getItemPosition() method and return POSITION_NONE.

Eventually, it will listen to the notifyDataSetChanged() on view pager.

---

The answer given by alvarolb is definitely the best way to do it. Building upon his answer, an easy way to implement this is to simply store out the active views by position:

SparseArray<View> views = new SparseArray<View>();

@Override
public Object instantiateItem(View container, int position) {
    View root = <build your view here>;
    ((ViewPager) container).addView(root);
    views.put(position, root);
    return root;
}

@Override
public void destroyItem(View collection, int position, Object o) {
    View view = (View)o;
    ((ViewPager) collection).removeView(view);
    views.remove(position);
    view = null;
}

Then once by overriding the notifyDataSetChanged method you can refresh the views...

@Override
public void notifyDataSetChanged() {
    int key = 0;
    for(int i = 0; i < views.size(); i++) {
       key = views.keyAt(i);
       View view = views.get(key);
       <refresh view with new data>
    }
    super.notifyDataSetChanged();
}

You can actually use similar code in instantiateItem and notifyDataSetChanged to refresh your view. In my code I use the exact same method.

---

Had the same problem. For me it worked to extend FragmentStatePagerAdapter, and override the below methods:

@Override
public Parcelable saveState() {
    return null;
}

@Override
public void restoreState(Parcelable state, ClassLoader loader) {

}

---

After hours of frustration while trying all the above solutions to overcome this problem and also trying many solutions on other similar questions like this, this and this which all FAILED with me to solve this problem and to make the ViewPager to destroy the old Fragment and fill the pager with the new Fragments. I have solved the problem as following:

1) Make the ViewPager class to extends FragmentPagerAdapter as following:

 public class myPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

2) Create an Item for the ViewPager that store the title and the fragment as following:

public class PagerItem {
private String mTitle;
private Fragment mFragment;


public PagerItem(String mTitle, Fragment mFragment) {
    this.mTitle = mTitle;
    this.mFragment = mFragment;
}
public String getTitle() {
    return mTitle;
}
public Fragment getFragment() {
    return mFragment;
}
public void setTitle(String mTitle) {
    this.mTitle = mTitle;
}

public void setFragment(Fragment mFragment) {
    this.mFragment = mFragment;
}

}

3) Make the constructor of the ViewPager take my FragmentManager instance to store it in my class as following:

private FragmentManager mFragmentManager;
private ArrayList<PagerItem> mPagerItems;

public MyPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fragmentManager, ArrayList<PagerItem> pagerItems) {
    super(fragmentManager);
    mFragmentManager = fragmentManager;
    mPagerItems = pagerItems;
}

4) Create a method to re-set the adapter data with the new data by deleting all the previous fragment from the fragmentManager itself directly to make the adapter to set the new fragment from the new list again as following:

public void setPagerItems(ArrayList<PagerItem> pagerItems) {
    if (mPagerItems != null)
        for (int i = 0; i < mPagerItems.size(); i++) {
            mFragmentManager.beginTransaction().remove(mPagerItems.get(i).getFragment()).commit();
        }
    mPagerItems = pagerItems;
}

5) From the container Activity or Fragment do not re-initialize the adapter with the new data. Set the new data through the method setPagerItems with the new data as following:

ArrayList<PagerItem> pagerItems = new ArrayList<PagerItem>();
pagerItems.add(new PagerItem("Fragment1", new MyFragment1()));
pagerItems.add(new PagerItem("Fragment2", new MyFragment2()));

mPagerAdapter.setPagerItems(pagerItems);
mPagerAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged();

I hope it helps.

---

I had the same issue and my solution is using FragmentPagerAdapter with overriding of FragmentPagerAdapter#getItemId(int position):

@Override
public long getItemId(int position) {
    return mPages.get(position).getId();
}

By default, this method returns item's position. I suppose that ViewPager checks if itemId was changed and recreates page only if it was. But not-overriden version returns the same position as itemId even if page is actually different, and ViewPager doesn't define that page is replaced one and needs to be recreated.

To use this, long id is needed for each page. Normally it is expected to be unique, but i suggest, for this case, that it just should be different from the previous value for the same page. So, It is possible to use continuous counter in adapter or random integers (with wide distribution) here.

I think that it is more consistent way rather using of Tags of view mentioned as a solution in this topic. But probably not for all cases.

---

I found very interesting decision of this problem. Instead of using FragmentPagerAdapter, which keep in memory all fragments, we can use FragmentStatePagerAdapter (android.support.v4.app.FragmentStatePagerAdapter), that reload fragment each time, when we select it.

Realisations of both adapters are identical. So, we need just change "extend FragmentPagerAdapter" on "extend FragmentStatePagerAdapter"

---

All these solution did not help me. thus i found a working solution: You can setAdapter every time, but it isn't enough. you should do these before changing adapter:

FragmentManager fragmentManager = slideShowPagerAdapter.getFragmentManager();
FragmentTransaction transaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
List<Fragment> fragments = fragmentManager.getFragments();
for (Fragment f : fragments) {
    transaction.remove(f);
}
transaction.commit();

and after this:

viewPager.setAdapter(adapter);

---

ViewPager was not designed to support dynamic view change.

I had confirmation of this while looking for another bug related to this one https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36956111 and in particular https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36956111#comment56

This question is a bit old, but Google recently solved this problem with ViewPager2 . It will allow to replace handmade (unmaintained and potentially buggy) solutions by a standard one. It also prevents recreating views needlessly as some answers do.

For ViewPager2 examples, you can check https://github.com/googlesamples/android-viewpager2

If you want to use ViewPager2, you will need to add the following dependency in your build.gradle file :

  dependencies {
     implementation 'androidx.viewpager2:viewpager2:1.0.0-beta02'
  }

Then you can replace your ViewPager in your xml file with :

    <androidx.viewpager2.widget.ViewPager2
        android:id="@+id/pager"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1" />

After that, you will need to replace ViewPager by ViewPager2 in your activity

ViewPager2 needs either a RecyclerView.Adapter, or a FragmentStateAdapter, in your case it can be a RecyclerView.Adapter

import android.content.Context;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.TextView;
import androidx.annotation.NonNull;
import androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView;

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.MyViewHolder> {

    private Context context;
    private ArrayList<String> arrayList = new ArrayList<>();

    public MyAdapter(Context context, ArrayList<String> arrayList) {
        this.context = context;
        this.arrayList = arrayList;
    }

    @NonNull
    @Override
    public MyViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(@NonNull ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
        View view = LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(R.layout.list_item, parent, false);
        return new MyViewHolder(view);
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(@NonNull MyViewHolder holder, int position) {
        holder.tvName.setText(arrayList.get(position));
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        return arrayList.size();
    }

    public class MyViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        TextView tvName;

        public MyViewHolder(@NonNull View itemView) {
            super(itemView);
            tvName = itemView.findViewById(R.id.tvName);
        }
    }
} 

In the case you were using a TabLayout, you can use a TabLayoutMediator :

        TabLayoutMediator tabLayoutMediator = new TabLayoutMediator(tabLayout, viewPager, true, new TabLayoutMediator.OnConfigureTabCallback() {
            @Override
            public void onConfigureTab(@NotNull TabLayout.Tab tab, int position) {
                // configure your tab here
                tab.setText(tabs.get(position).getTitle());
            }
        });

        tabLayoutMediator.attach();

Then you will be able to refresh your views by modifying your adapter's data and calling notifyDataSetChanged method

---

After a lot of searching for this problem, I found a really good solution that I think is the right way to go about this. Essentially, instantiateItem only gets called when the view is instantiated and never again unless the view is destroyed (this is what happens when you override the getItemPosition function to return POSITION_NONE). Instead, what you want to do is save the created views and either update them in the adapter, generate a get function so someone else can update it, or a set function which updates the adapter (my favorite).

So, in your MyViewPagerAdapter add a variable like:

private View updatableView;

an in your instantiateItem:

 public Object instantiateItem(View collection, int position) {
        updatableView = new TextView(ctx); //My change is here
        view.setText(data.get(position));
        ((ViewPager)collection).addView(view);
        return view;
    }

so, this way, you can create a function that will update your view:

public updateText(String txt)
{
    ((TextView)updatableView).setText(txt);
}

Hope this helps!

---

Two and half years after the OP posed his question, this issue is still, well, still an issue. It's obvious Google's priority on this isn't particularly high, so rather than find a fix, I found a workaround. The big breakthrough for me was finding out what the real cause of the problem was (see the accepted answer in this post ). Once it was apparent that the issue was that any active pages are not properly refreshed, my workaround was obvious:

In my Fragment (the pages):

I took all the code which populates the form out of onCreateView and put it in a function called PopulateForm which may be called from anywhere, rather than by the framework. This function attempts to get the current View using getView, and if that is null, it just returns. It's important that PopulateForm contains only the code that displays - all the other code which creates FocusChange listeners and the like is still in OnCreate

Create a boolean which can be used as a flag indicating the form must be reloaded. Mine is mbReloadForm

Override OnResume() to call PopulateForm() if mbReloadForm is set.

In my Activity, where I do the loading of the pages:

Go to page 0 before changing anything. I'm using FragmentStatePagerAdapter, so I know that two or three pages are affected at most. Changing to page 0 ensures I only ever have the problem on pages 0, 1 and 2.

Before clearing the old list, take it's size(). This way you know how many pages are affected by the bug. If > 3, reduce it to 3 - if you're using a a different PagerAdapter, you'll have to see how many pages you have to deal with (maybe all?)

Reload the data and call pageAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged()

Now, for each of the affected pages, see if the page is active by using pager.getChildAt(i) - this tells you if you have a view. If so, call pager.PopulateView(). If not, set the ReloadForm flag.

After this, when you reload a second set of pages, the bug will still cause some to display the old data. However, they will now be refreshed and you will see the new data - your users won't know the page was ever incorrect because this refreshing will happen before they see the page.

Hope this helps someone!

---

A much easier way: use a FragmentPagerAdapter, and wrap your paged views onto fragments. They do get updated

---

Thank rui.araujo and Alvaro Luis Bustamante. At first, I try to use rui.araujo's way, because it's easy. It works but when the data change, the page will redraw obviously. It is bad so I try to use Alvaro Luis Bustamante's way. It's perfect. Here is the code:

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
}

private class TabPagerAdapter extends PagerAdapter {
    @Override
    public int getCount() {
        return 4;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isViewFromObject(final View view, final Object object) {
        return view.equals(object);
    }

    @Override
    public void destroyItem(final View container, final int position, final Object object) {
        ((ViewPager) container).removeView((View) object);
    }

    @Override
    public Object instantiateItem(final ViewGroup container, final int position) {
        final View view = LayoutInflater.from(
                getBaseContext()).inflate(R.layout.activity_approval, null, false);
        container.addView(view);
        ListView listView = (ListView) view.findViewById(R.id.list_view);
        view.setTag(position);
        new ShowContentListTask(listView, position).execute();
        return view;
    }
}

And when data change:

for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
    View view = contentViewPager.findViewWithTag(i);
    if (view != null) {
        ListView listView = (ListView) view.findViewById(R.id.list_view);
        new ShowContentListTask(listView, i).execute();
    }
}

---

I had a similar problem in which I had four pages and one of the pages updated views on the other three. I was able to updated the widgets(SeekBars, TextViews, etc.) on the page adjacent to the current page. The last two pages would have uninitialized widgets when calling mTabsAdapter.getItem(position).

To solve my issue, I used setSelectedPage(index) before calling getItem(position). This would instantiate the page, allowing me to be able to alter values and widgets on each page.

After all of the updating I would use setSelectedPage(position) followed by notifyDataSetChanged().

You can see a slight flicker in the ListView on the main updating page, but nothing noticeable. I haven't tested it throughly, but it does solve my immediate problem.

---

Just in case anyone are using FragmentStatePagerAdapter based adapter(which will let ViewPager create minimum pages needed for display purpose, at most 2 for my case), @rui.araujo's answer of overwriting getItemPosition in your adapter will not cause significant waste, but it still can be improved.

In pseudo code:

public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
    YourFragment f = (YourFragment) object;
    YourData d = f.data;
    logger.info("validate item position on page index: " + d.pageNo);

    int dataObjIdx = this.dataPages.indexOf(d);

    if (dataObjIdx < 0 || dataObjIdx != d.pageNo) {
        logger.info("data changed, discard this fragment.");
        return POSITION_NONE;
    }

    return POSITION_UNCHANGED;
}

---

I am just posting this answer in case anyone else finds it useful. For doing the exact same thing, I simply took the source code of the ViewPager and PagerAdapter from the compatibility library and compiled it within my code (You need to sort out all the errors and imports yourself, but it definitely can be done).

Then, in the CustomViewPager, create a method called updateViewAt(int position). The view itself can be gotten from ArrayList mItems defined in the ViewPager class (you need to set an Id for the views at instantiate item and compare this id with position in the updateViewAt() method). Then you can update the view as necessary.

---

You can update dynamically all fragments, you can see in three steps.

In your adapter:

public class MyPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {
private static int NUM_ITEMS = 3;
private Map<Integer, String> mFragmentTags;
private FragmentManager mFragmentManager;

public MyPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fragmentManager) {
    super(fragmentManager);
    mFragmentManager = fragmentManager;
    mFragmentTags = new HashMap<Integer, String>();
}

// Returns total number of pages
@Override
public int getCount() {
    return NUM_ITEMS;
}

// Returns the fragment to display for that page
@Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
    switch (position) {
        case 0:
            return FirstFragment.newInstance();
        case 1:
            return SecondFragment.newInstance();
        case 2:
            return ThirdFragment.newInstance();
        default:
            return null;
    }
}

// Returns the page title for the top indicator
@Override
public CharSequence getPageTitle(int position) {
    return "Page " + position;
}

@Override
public Object instantiateItem(ViewGroup container, int position) {
    Object object = super.instantiateItem(container, position);
    if (object instanceof Fragment) {
        Fragment fragment = (Fragment) object;
        String tag = fragment.getTag();
        mFragmentTags.put(position, tag);
    }
    return object;
}

public Fragment getFragment(int position) {
    Fragment fragment = null;
    String tag = mFragmentTags.get(position);
    if (tag != null) {
        fragment = mFragmentManager.findFragmentByTag(tag);
    }
    return fragment;
}}

Now in your activity:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener{

MyPagerAdapter mAdapterViewPager;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    ViewPager viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.vpPager);
    mAdapterViewPager = new MyPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager());
    viewPager.setAdapter(mAdapterViewPager);
    viewPager.addOnPageChangeListener(this);
}

@Override
public void onPageScrolled(int position, float positionOffset, int positionOffsetPixels) {

}

@Override
public void onPageSelected(int position) {

    Fragment fragment = mAdapterViewPager.getFragment(position);
    if (fragment != null) {
        fragment.onResume();
    }
}

@Override
public void onPageScrollStateChanged(int state) {

}}

Finally in your fragment, something like that:

public class YourFragment extends Fragment {

// newInstance constructor for creating fragment with arguments
public static YourFragment newInstance() {

    return new YourFragment();
}

// Store instance variables based on arguments passed
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}

// Inflate the view for the fragment based on layout XML
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                         Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment, container, false);
}


@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();

    //to refresh your view
    refresh();

}}

You can see complete code here.

Thanks Alvaro Luis Bustamante.

---

I guess, I've got the logics of ViewPager.

If I need to refresh a set of pages and display them based on new dataset, I call notifyDataSetChanged(). Then, ViewPager makes a number of calls to getItemPosition(), passing there Fragment as an Object. This Fragment can be either from an old dataset (that I want to discard) or from a new one (that I want to display). So, I override getItemPosition() and there I have to determine somehow if my Fragment is from the old dataset or from the new one.

In my case I have a 2-pane layout with a list of top items on the left pane and a swipe view (ViewPager) on the right. So, I store a link to my current top item inside my PagerAdapter and also inside of each instantiated page Fragment. When the selected top item in the list changes, I store the new top item in PagerAdapter and call notifyDataSetChanged(). And in the overridden getItemPosition() I compare the top item from my adapter to the top item from my fragment. And only if they are not equal, I return POSITION_NONE. Then, PagerAdapter reinstantiates all the fragments that have returned POSITION_NONE.

NOTE. Storing the top item id instead of a reference might be a better idea.

The code snippet below is a bit schematical but I adapted it from the actually working code.

public class SomeFragment extends Fragment {
  private TopItem topItem;
}

public class SomePagerAdapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter {
  private TopItem topItem;

  public void changeTopItem(TopItem newTopItem) {
    topItem = newTopItem;
    notifyDataSetChanged();
  }

  @Override
  public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
    if (((SomeFragment) object).getTopItemId() != topItem.getId()) {
      return POSITION_NONE;
    }
    return super.getItemPosition(object);
  }
}

Thanks for all the previous researchers!

---

The code below worked for me.

Create a class which extends the FragmentPagerAdapter class as below.

public class Adapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

private int tabCount;
private Activity mActivity;
private Map<Integer, String> mFragmentTags;
private FragmentManager mFragmentManager;
private int container_id;
private ViewGroup container;
private List<Object> object;

public Adapter(FragmentManager fm) {
    super(fm);
}

public Adapter(FragmentManager fm, int numberOfTabs , Activity mA) {
    super(fm);
    mActivity = mA;
    mFragmentManager = fm;
    object = new ArrayList<>();
    mFragmentTags = new HashMap<Integer, String>();
    this.tabCount = numberOfTabs;
}

@Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
    switch (position) {
        case 0:
            return Fragment0.newInstance(mActivity);
        case 1:
            return Fragment1.newInstance(mActivity);
        case 2:
            return Fragment2.newInstance(mActivity);
        default:
            return null;
    }}


@Override
public Object instantiateItem(ViewGroup container, int position) {
    Object object = super.instantiateItem(container, position);
    if (object instanceof Fragment) {
        Log.e("Already defined","Yes");
        Fragment fragment = (Fragment) object;
        String tag = fragment.getTag();
        Log.e("Fragment Tag","" + position + ", " + tag);
        mFragmentTags.put(position, tag);
    }else{
        Log.e("Already defined","No");
    }
    container_id = container.getId();
    this.container = container;
    if(position == 0){
        this.object.add(0,object);
    }else if(position == 1){
        this.object.add(1,object);
    }else if(position == 2){
        this.object.add(2,object);
    }
    return object;
}

@Override
public void destroyItem(ViewGroup container, int position, Object object) {
    super.destroyItem(container, position, object);
    if (object instanceof Fragment) {
        Log.e("Removed" , String.valueOf(position));
    }
}

@Override
public int getItemPosition (Object object)
{   int index = 0;
    if(this.object.get(0) == object){
        index = 0;
    }else if(this.object.get(1) == object){
        index = 1;
    }else if(this.object.get(2) == object){
        index = 2;
    }else{
        index = -1;
    }
    Log.e("Index" , "..................." + String.valueOf(index));
    if (index == -1)
        return POSITION_NONE;
    else
        return index;
}

public String getFragmentTag(int pos){
    return "android:switcher:"+R.id.pager+":"+pos;
}

public void NotifyDataChange(){
    this.notifyDataSetChanged();
}

public int getcontainerId(){
    return container_id;
}

public ViewGroup getContainer(){
    return this.container;
}

public List<Object> getObject(){
    return this.object;
}

@Override
public int getCount() {
    return tabCount;
}}

Then inside each Fragment you created, create an updateFragment method. In this method you change the things you need to change in the fragment. For example in my case, Fragment0 contained a GLSurfaceView which displays a 3d object based on a path to a .ply file, so inside my updateFragment method I change the path to this ply file.

then create a ViewPager instance,

viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);

and an Adpater instance,

adapter = new Adapter(getSupportFragmentManager(), 3, this);

then do this,

viewPager.setAdapter(adapter);
viewPager.setOffscreenPageLimit(1);

Then inside the class were you initialized the Adapter class above and created a viewPager, every time you want to update one of your fragments (in our case Fragment0) use the following:

adapter.NotifyDataChange();

adapter.destroyItem(adapter.getContainer(), 0, adapter.getObject().get(0)); // destroys page 0 in the viewPager.

fragment0 = (Fragment0) getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(adapter.getFragmentTag(0)); // Gets fragment instance used on page 0.

fragment0.updateFragment() method which include the updates on this fragment

adapter.instantiateItem(adapter.getContainer(), 0); // re-initialize page 0.

This solution was based on the technique suggested by Alvaro Luis Bustamante.

---

I know I'm late but still it could help someone. I'm just extending the accepted answer and I have also added the comment on it.

Well, the answer itself says it is inefficient

So in order to make it refresh only when required you can do this

private boolean refresh;

public void refreshAdapter() {
    refresh = true;
    notifyDataSetChanged();
}

@Override
public int getItemPosition(@NonNull Object object) {
    if (refresh) {
        refresh = false;
        return POSITION_NONE;
    } else {
        return super.getItemPosition(object);
    }
}

---

1.First you have to set the getItemposition method in your Pageradapter class 2.You have to read the Exact position of your View Pager 3.then send that position as data location of your new one 4.Write update button onclick listener inside the setonPageChange listener

that program code is little bit i modified to set the particular position element only

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

private ViewPager myViewPager;
private List<String> data;
public int location=0;
public Button updateButton;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    data = new ArrayList<String>();
    data.add("A");
    data.add("B");
    data.add("C");
    data.add("D");
    data.add("E");
    data.add("F");

    myViewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
    myViewPager.setAdapter(new MyViewPagerAdapter(this, data));

      updateButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.update);

    myViewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(new ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener() {
        @Override
        public void onPageScrolled(int i, float v, int i2) {
             //Toast.makeText(MyActivity.this, i+"  Is Selected  "+data.size(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        }

        @Override
        public void onPageSelected( int i) {
          // here you will get the position of selected page
            final int k = i;
             updateViewPager(k);

        }

        @Override
        public void onPageScrollStateChanged(int i) {

        }
    });
}

private void updateViewPager(final int i) {  
    updateButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {

            Toast.makeText(MyActivity.this, i+"  Is Selected  "+data.size(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            data.set(i, "Replaced "+i);         
            myViewPager.getAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();
        }
    });

}

private class MyViewPagerAdapter extends PagerAdapter {

    private List<String> data;
    private Context ctx;

    public MyViewPagerAdapter(Context ctx, List<String> data) {
        this.ctx = ctx;
        this.data = data;
    }

    @Override
    public int getCount() {
        return data.size();
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
        return POSITION_NONE;
    }

    @Override
    public Object instantiateItem(View collection, int position) {          

        TextView view = new TextView(ctx);
        view.setText(data.get(position));
        ((ViewPager)collection).addView(view);            
        return view;
    }

    @Override
    public void destroyItem(View collection, int position, Object view) {
         ((ViewPager) collection).removeView((View) view);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isViewFromObject(View view, Object object) {
        return view == object;
    }

    @Override
    public Parcelable saveState() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void restoreState(Parcelable arg0, ClassLoader arg1) {
    }

    @Override
    public void startUpdate(View arg0) {
    }

    @Override
    public void finishUpdate(View arg0) {
    }
}
}

---

what worked for me was going viewPager.getAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();

and in the adapter putting your code for updating the view inside getItemPosition like so

@Override
public int getItemPosition(Object object) {

    if (object instanceof YourViewInViewPagerClass) { 
        YourViewInViewPagerClass view = (YourViewInViewPagerClass)object;
        view.setData(data);
    }

    return super.getItemPosition(object);
}

might not be the most correct way of going about it but it worked (the return POSITION_NONE trick caused a crash for me so wasnt an option)

---

Always returning POSITION_NONE is simple but a little inefficient way because that evoke instantiation of all page that have already instantiated.

I've created a library ArrayPagerAdapter to change items in PagerAdapters dynamically.

Internally, this library's adapters return POSITION_NONE on getItemPosiition() only when necessary.

You can change items dynamically like following by using this library.

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        /** ... **/
    adapter = new MyStatePagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager()
                            , new String[]{"1", "2", "3"});
    ((ViewPager)findViewById(R.id.view_pager)).setAdapter(adapter);
     adapter.add("4");
     adapter.remove(0);
}

class MyPagerAdapter extends ArrayViewPagerAdapter<String> {

    public MyPagerAdapter(String[] data) {
        super(data);
    }

    @Override
    public View getView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, String item, int position) {
        View v = inflater.inflate(R.layout.item_page, container, false);
        ((TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.item_txt)).setText(item);
        return v;
    }
}

Thils library also support pages created by Fragments.

---

This is a horrible problem and I'm happy to present an excellent solution; simple, efficient, and effective !

See below, the code shows using a flag to indicate when to return POSITION_NONE

public class ViewPagerAdapter extends PagerAdapter
{
    // Members
    private boolean mForceReinstantiateItem = false;

    // This is used to overcome terrible bug that Google isn't fixing
    // We know that getItemPosition() is called right after notifyDataSetChanged()
    // Therefore, the fix is to return POSITION_NONE right after the notifyDataSetChanged() was called - but only once
    @Override
    public int getItemPosition(Object object)
    {
        if (mForceReinstantiateItem)
        {
            mForceReinstantiateItem = false;
            return POSITION_NONE;
        }
        else
        {
            return super.getItemPosition(object);
        }
    }

    public void setData(ArrayList<DisplayContent> newContent)
    {
        mDisplayContent = newContent;
        mForceReinstantiateItem = true;
        notifyDataSetChanged();
    }

}

---

This is for all those like me, which need to update the Viewpager from a service (or other background thread) and none of the proposals have worked: After a bit of logchecking i realized, that the notifyDataSetChanged() method never returns. getItemPosition(Object object) is called an all ends there without further processing. Then i found in the docs of the parent PagerAdapter class (is not in the docs of the subclasses), "Data set changes must occur on the main thread and must end with a call to notifyDataSetChanged() ". So, the working solution in this case was (using FragmentStatePagerAdapter and getItemPosition(Object object) set to return POSITION_NONE) :

and then the call to notifyDataSetChanged() :

runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
         @Override
         public void run() {
             pager.getAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();
         }
     });

---

You can add pager transform on Viewpager like this

myPager.setPageTransformer(true, new MapPagerTransform());

In the below code I changed my view color on runtime when pager scroll

public class MapPagerTransform implements ViewPager.PageTransformer {

    public void transformPage(View view, float position) {
        LinearLayout showSelectionLL = (LinearLayout) view.findViewById(R.id.showSelectionLL);

        if (position < 0) {
            showSelectionLL.setBackgroundColor(Color.WHITE);
        } else if (position > 0) {
            showSelectionLL.setBackgroundColor(Color.WHITE);
        } else {
            showSelectionLL.setBackgroundColor(Color.RED);
        }
    }
}

---

In my case there is a textView in my Viewpager, on a button click in mainActivity I want to change the color of that textView and update pagerAdapter. On the button Click I saved the color in SharedPreference and update pagerAdapter, that it can update the color taken from shared prefrence. So, I update viewPager view the following way .

btn_purple.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                int color = ContextCompat.getColor(mContext, R.color.colorPrimaryDark2);
                editor.putInt("sahittoFontColor", color);
                editor.apply();
                toNotifyDatasetChanged();
            }
        });

now the update method :

 private  void  toNotifyDatasetChanged (){
        if(viewPager!=null&& pagerAdapter!=null) {
            viewPager.setAdapter(null);
            viewPager.setAdapter(pagerAdapter);
           
        }

    }

And my pagerAdapter Was :

pagerAdapter = new  Sahitto_ViewPagerAdapter (mContext, filenameParameter, 30, lineList);
                        viewPager.setAdapter(pagerAdapter);

And in instantiateItem was (in PagerAdapter) :

    SharedPreferences settings = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(mContext);
    int   bnfntcolor=settings.getInt("sahittoFontColor", 0);
if (bnfntcolor!=0){
    textView.setTextColor(bnfntcolor);
}

Thus, when I click the button, the color changes immediately in pagerAdapter's Textview.

Happy coding.

---

In ViewPager2 you can re-initialize the adapter again to refresh the pager list with new views. viewPager2.adapter = myPagerAdapter

---

Instead of returning POSITION_NONE and creating all fragments again, you can do as I suggested here: Update ViewPager dynamically?

---